Dodgers’ Rotation Could Have an Old Look to It

The nonstop from Seattle on Friday took 4 hours 30 minutes, which is only slightly longer than the average postseason game as baseball allows Fox to cram so many commercials into the extended 2-minute 30-second break between each half inning that Rupert Murdoch should have no trouble raising the Dodgers’ already industry-numbing payroll, if that’s what he chooses.

Of course, new General Manager Dan Evans will have a difficult time doing anything but that in the normal course of business, since he already has 13 players guaranteed $88.1 million next year.

However, chairman Bob Daly would like to start getting his financial house in order (management sources insist the club lost $30 million), and the word is that Evans has been instructed to cut where he can, which is interpreted to mean that neither Chan Ho Park nor Terry Adams will be re-signed.

The Dodgers are convinced that Kevin Brown and Andy Ashby will return 100% from elbow surgery, that free agent James Baldwin represents a more economical signing and that a combination of Terry Mulholland, Luke Prokopec and Eric Gagne can fill the last two spots in the rotation.

What makes dollars and sense to some may represent a gamble to others. Brown will be 37 next year, Ashby 35, Baldwin 31 and Mulholland 39.

It could be the Dodger version of assisted living.

* So, the commissioner’s office is investigating Mo Vaughn for tampering. Maybe the humane society should investigate him for biting the hand that feeds him, and at Vaughn’s often bloated girth it takes quite a bit of feeding.

All Vaughn did, when he called a Boston radio station to say he would like to go back to the Red Sox and hoped the Angels could trade him, was spit at the club that gave him a six-year, $80-million contract when there were no comparable offers and that still owes him about $50 million for three years.

In return, Vaughn has played only one full season in his first three with the Angels and offers no guarantee of his fit and successful return from biceps surgery. Some nerve.

* Larry Dierker, who led the Houston Astros to four division titles in five years, heard the executioner’s footsteps when he resigned Thursday. It was another indication that the inmates run the asylum. The return of Dierker might have prompted a clubhouse mutiny by the same veteran core that has gagged in the playoffs, unable to get past the first round.

As General Manager Gerry Hunsicker said: It was the “leadership in the clubhouse” that got Dierker fired, and now they have no excuse. Next up? Jimy Williams, the former Boston Red Sox manager, and Tony Pena, Houston’s triple-A manager, are the early favorites.

* Could Pat Gillick, who rebuilt the Seattle Mariners after Ken Griffey Jr. and Alex Rodriguez left, be returning to Toronto (where his wife owns an art gallery) to begin a second stint with a club he once built into an Eastern power? Even close friends in the Mariner organization can’t seem to get a definitive answer from Gillick, who simply may be using the Blue Jay speculation for negotiating leverage.

In the meantime, Canadian Doug Melvin, the former Texas GM, is considered the favorite to succeed fired Gord Ash with the Blue Jays, which would again shut the door--and maybe for good--on Dave Stewart, Ash’s assistant. Baseball executives seem as wary of the opinionated and strong-willed Stewart as opposing hitters once were, and while Stewart will be interviewed by Blue Jay brass next week, he acknowledges that he has grown weary of the rejections and will probably give up on his GM dreams to return to the field. He is expected to become Davey Lopes’ pitching coach with the Milwaukee Brewers.

* Agent Scott Boras may have sacrificed some of his advise-and-consent role with the Dodgers by questioning the club’s use of Park in relief, but he retains the ear of Texas Ranger owner Tom Hicks, who blew out the payroll ceiling with that $252-million signing of Rodriguez, a Boras client, last winter.

Insiders say Boras is now trying to talk Hicks into hiring Grady Fuson, the Oakland Athletics’ acclaimed scouting director, as Melvin’s GM replacement. Boras can be persuasive, but Hicks is leaning to a more experienced choice, probably Cleveland’s retiring John Hart or Florida Marlin General Manager Dave Dombrowski. The latter rejected the Dodgers to remain in Florida before Kevin Malone ultimately became the Dodger GM, but Dombrowski now fears that Marlin owner John Henry is about to become a payroll slashing man.

* Dept. of Miscommunication: Both Felipe Alou and Buck Showalter are telling friends that they are a lock to replace Tony Perez as Marlin manager. Both may be quick to jam the lock if Henry decides to retreat financially.

* As the Athletics search for ways to re-sign Jason Giambi and Giambi casts flirtatious eyes at the New York Yankees, the neighboring San Francisco Giants hope to re-sign free-agent pitchers Jason Schmidt and Jason Christiansen before tackling their own Giambi-like dilemma in Barry Bonds.

On one hand, neither the A’s nor Giants seem capable of fitting Giambi and Bonds into their restricted payrolls. On the other, how can they not? Said Giant GM Brian Sabean: “Nobody gave us a chance to sign Dusty Baker last year. Everybody had him with one foot out the door, and who knows? He could have gotten more money exponentially somewhere else. When a man looks you in the eye like he did and says he wants to stay, you try to figure out a way to do it, and we’re going to try to do that with Barry.”

The market may ultimately make the decision for both free agents. Giambi will be widely coveted. Bonds, who is said to have no interest in going to the American League and giving up his familiarity with National League pitchers, could be restricted to the Chicago Cubs, New York Mets and Atlanta Braves--which, of course, would be enough to raise the ante for the Giants.

* The offensive explosion of recent years is not the only yardstick for measuring baseball’s evolution. A mid-morning visit to a Seattle hotel fitness room found it filled by baseball reporters working out. Who’s closing the bars these days?